NSW bushfire crisis eases

Cooler and calmer weather has helped NSW firefighters strengthen containment lines around troublesome bush and grassfires, enabling warnings to be downgraded across the state.

At midday on Saturday 142 fires were still burning, 29 of them uncontained.

But the Rural Fire Service (RFS) says the weather change from the searing temperatures and strong winds of Friday is in firefighters' favour, enabling all alerts to be wound back to just advice level by midday on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday morning there were five watch and act alerts in place, including for the Warrumbungle fire near Coonabarabran in the north, where 51 homes have been destroyed and 54,000ha burnt through.